Round or Rectangular

I am asking for a cooler from Santa Claus this holiday season. I plan on batch sparging b/c it seems easiest and simplest.

It will be of the 10 gallon variety in case I do some larger grain bills; although I suspect for 90% of my beers, a 5-gallon cooler would be fine.

Probably will use the stainless braid for a manifold, although copper or the c-pvc i have seen talked about on this forum intrigue me a bit.

So,

Which is best? Rectangular or Round cooler? Also, is any brand cooler OK to use? Are some brands better than others, specifically regarding the removal and replacement of the drain valve?

I bought the square one. It's the Blue Igloo ice cube seems alot of people are using that one now. I am pretty sure it's a 50 quart. I am just getting started with all grain. I have made a cpvc manifold for it which was pretty easy to do.

What purpose does a manifold serve? I've never done a full mash, just partials, but I'm going to try out an allgrain batch after the new year.

If you are going to batch sparge I would opt for a rectangular cooler. The stainless braid works just fine with mine.

I'm planning on a rectangular, because I have one

I went with a 70 qt rectangular so I can do 50 lb grain bills.

A 40 qt restricted me to 35 lb max and that was the absolute max that could be done.

If you are planning on moving up to 10 gallon batches, you might want to invest in the larger mash tun now rather than having to step up later on.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,

knewshound

For batch sparging a square cooler is just fine. I have a round one, mostly because that way I have an option to sparge either way. A round cooler is much more expensive though, unless you find a bargain. I agree with knewshound- bigger is better.

The manifold serves the same purpose as a false bottom. It allows you to collect the wort without collecting grains/husks/etc.....

Evan! said:

What purpose does a manifold serve? I've never done a full mash, just partials, but I'm going to try out an allgrain batch after the new year.

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ablrbrau said:

For batch sparging a square cooler is just fine. I have a round one, mostly because that way I have an option to sparge either way. A round cooler is much more expensive though, unless you find a bargain. I agree with knewshound- bigger is better.

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OK, so why does everyone talk about round being better for fly sparging? Also, I've heard that tall grain beds with less surface area are preferable to shallow, wide grain beds. Why is this?

Thanks guys. Learning a lot.

With batch sparging, you add the sparge water, stir it up, wait a bit for the sugars to be dissolved, recirculate a bit until you have clear runnings, and then drain into the kettle.
With fly sparging, you want to add water very gently over the entire surface of the grain bed, and let it percolate gently through the grain bed into the kettle. There is no stirring, and it takes considerably longer.

A rotating spare arm is great for gently adding water to the top of the grain bed, but dispenses water in a circular pattern, so a round cooler is better if you use a rotating sparge arm. Also, a deep grain bed allows the water to remain in contact with the grain for longer, and allows more sugars to be dissolved.

With batch sparging, the shape of the tun and the depth of the grain bed don't make much difference.

-a.

Ah... OK, so round is better than rectangular for fly sparging simply because it is easier to apply the sparge water evenly, there is no efficiency issue.

The deeper bed makes sense, it is probably a lot easier to get the bed set and get the runnings to clear up with a deeper bed too.

It doesn't take much grain bed depth to filter the wort. In commercial brewing, the grain bed depth is in the order of 30cm (little more than 12in), but the cutting blades may cut as deep as 3cm (1.2 in) over the bottom and the wort runs clear. A shallower bed will give you faster run-offs as well.

But that shouldn't be a concern for you. Go with the size you think you may need and if you have the option to choose between round and rectangular, I'd go with the round one. It seems that you can stir the mash more evenly in the round ones and I heard that they are made from food grade plastic. The rectangular ones may not be made from a food grade material since they are not designed to hold liquids for drinking.

Kai

Not all foams like the heat. My rectangular box is starting to distort, after 15 batchs. Plus, the square corners lead to inconsistencies- hot/cold spots. Round shapes have less surface area-to-volume, so ought to keep the heat better. If I was to buy new, and strictly for brewing, I'd go round and hot/cold.